School and work have kept me crazy busy since the first of the year, but I have been working diligently as of late to finish up some projects. I posted yesterday about the buffet, but you may recall that I was also re-doing my sons' bedroom prior to Christmas. I'm happy to say I'm about 90% done now, after scoring a major discount on a rug for the room today!

And again, lighting is going to be an issue in this post. This room only gets good lighting in the morning. The rest of the day it's shadowy horrible for photo's! To make it even more challenging, it's been raining all weekend. The ceiling fan/light just adds a yellow cast to the room, so this is it for now.

Do you see that rug?! It's 7x10 and the perfect size for this room. It's a little more patterned than what I was originally looking for, but the colors work well with the room, and I could not beat the price. $79.98 on clearance at Target. Down from $249.99 when I was looking at it before Christmas! It makes my budget conscious heart VERY happy!!

This desk area really turned out well. He has a large space to work at, plenty of storage, and places to hang his drawings. Both lights are on now for the photo's, but usually, he only uses the lamp for task lighting. He has always preferred his clothes to go in his chest of drawers, so the closet was completely wasted space before (and piled with junk!)

Here's a close up of his desk space

The desk has a very small lip on the edge so that pencils don't roll off, but not enough that he feels it when he's writing or drawing. To the left of the cork board, I do want to put a floating shelf, but that's part of that 10% not done.

Speaking of not done, there are still a few things that need to be completed:

new blinds and curtains for his window - and if I'm being honest, I haven't even looked into these yet. But as I mentioned previously, his blinds are broken and must be replaced. The curtains have small tears (no idea where those came from!) and I'm not thrilled with tie-dyed curtains, a plaid duvet, and the patterned rug. It's just too much. So those still need to be done.

Artwork - my son is very picky on artwork. This may take some time to find what he really wants and what I find to be acceptable. Artwork adds up quickly as well, so that needs to be a consideration as well.

Conversation area - it's not obvious in the first photo, but he has quite a bit of space to the right of his bed. Ideally, he'd like two bean bag chairs and small table between them. That way when he has friends over, they can 'hang out' away from his brothers. I want navy or dark denim, so it's just a matter of finding something that's cost effective. The builder will probably make him a small table of some sort. I haven't worked out that detail yet.

But for me, the rug is what really pushed this almost to completion. It looks sparse at the moment, but it does look put together. And when he comes home from spring break, I think he'll be happy!

It's done. And I LOVE it. It is better than what I even imagined. Here are some more photo's

This is a new piece of mahogany veneer that The Builder laminated back to the top. The wood grain is just beautiful, and while it was a little pricey, it was well worth it.

Yes, for those that know me, that is my Downton Abbey tea set. I wanted the tea set the first year it was out, but it sold out quickly. When the brought it out again before the last season, I was quick to buy it (to the dismay of my friends and family who had thought they might buy me some pieces for Christmas...oops) I think it looks SO pretty out on display.

You may remember the photo where the bottom was all scratched up and just a mess. That was carefully sanded out. The Builder suspects that at some point, someone did a repair, and the bottom was 'painted' to match the original finish. That to some work to get it sanded down, and then to color match it since it took stain differently than the rest of the piece. The Builder spent days applying layers of stain to get it to match the rest of the piece. I think he did a wonder job!

I can't believe I contemplated painting any of this initially! The wood on this is just beautiful. I'm so happy we were able to restore it.

What we spent:

Buffet - $45 + sales tax

mahogany veneer - $55

spray paint for the hardware - $8

pewter rub to tone down the SHINY paint after we painted the hardware: $5

Total: $113

Now to be fair, we already owned the two stains that we mixed, Rustoleum/Varathane Provincial and Cherry. We also already had the clear varnish we used on the body and the wax paste we used on the top, as well as the wood glue. These things would have run us another $25-$30. We also bought a multi pack of sandpaper. And we used it ALL.

You may also notice in the last photo, that it matches our existing dining room chairs perfectly. I wish I could say this was intentional. But it was a total fluke!

I still have some styling to do on this wall. Currently there is a shelf that is now too small for the scale of this piece, that holds a few of my most used cookbooks. It's now complete wrong for this space, and I'll have to see if there's anywhere else that it would work. That means I either need a longer shelf for the scale of this piece, artwork, or a cabinet of some sort. Or even a combination of some sort, to finish this off. But I've already stored my good china and my decorative plates in the lower cabinets, and I'll start putting my tea towels and table clothes in the drawers.